Warlock talents
Starting at level 10, a Warlock can begin spending talent points to gain new abilities and spells, strengthen existing abilities, and specialize how he/she functions. See the entry on Talents for more information about the Talent system. Warlock Talents have undergone significant changes with the 1.6 patch, and further changes with the 2.0.1 patch. Some Warlock talent builds have become quite popular. There's a tendency to describe talent builds with the names of their highest-tier talents, or by the numbers of points spent in each tree (30/0/21 means 30 points in Affliction, no points in Demonology, and 21 points in Destruction); the trees are listed in alphabetical order, which is the order in which they appear in the game. Also, there are usually many options available on the way to the top-tier talents; there can be many variations of these depending on each Warlock's individual taste and style. See also: * Warlock Talent calculator at the Official site * Warlock Talent calculator at WorldofWar.se * Warlock Talent Calculator at Wowhead * Warlock talent calculator at Thottbot.com * Warlock talent calculator at merciless-gilde.com. Affliction The Affliction tree gives a Warlock more powerful curses and drains, better DoT ability, and in the end more powerful Shadow spells in general as well as a new way of recovering mana. There are also two additional DoTs and a new curse. Look and Feel Affliction Warlocks are the masters of killing an opponent at a distance while someone else does all the heavy lifting. With spells like Siphon Life and Drain Life, even your opponent helps you out a bit. Affliction warlocks are patient folk with some even taking a load off while their DoTs kill their target who is presently engaged with the Warlock's Voidwalker. Though some fights can take long enough to resolve, the efficiency of this tree allows the Warlock's mana to regenerate while the target dies. As of patch 2.0.1, all DoTs now receive the full benefit of spell power bonuses making this DoT enhancing tree viable for PvP along with insta-cast Howl of Terror and Unstable Affliction. Strengths * Efficiency: While it is possible to finish a fight quickly, you don't have to. You also don't want to, because you're thinking ahead to the next fight, and the one after that. After applying DoTs, an Affliction Warlock will alternate Life Tap and Drain Life instead of using Shadow Bolt to help speed up the impending doom of your target. With Improved Life Tap and Improved Drain Life, you will net positive gains in both health and mana, all while doing around the same damage as a single Shadow Bolt. Doing this takes longer (6-7 seconds for the combo vs 3 seconds for Shadow Bolt), but you will be able to jump right into the next fight with no hesitation. * Strong Vs. Adds: Because many of a Warlock's Affliction spells are of the "fire and forget" variety, a second or third mob will directly multiply your DPS. While you have to worry about pulling aggro off of your pet in these cases, Fear will allow you to juggle adds rather than having them do anything inconvenient like hitting you. * Usually Have More: Affliction Warlocks are most effective when they take their time. This means that in a pinch you have a lot more where everything came from. If your pet is taking more damage than feels safe you can start spamming Shadow Bolts. By the time your pet dies/loses aggro, the mob is either dead or is very close. * Strong Vs. Elites: Unless something is immune to Fear, if an Affliction Warlock can't kill it, no one can. This is done through Fear kiting, in which a Warlock keeps a target Feared while their DoTs slowly but surely drain away the target's life. * DoT-and-Kite: Even if something is immune to Fear, if an Affliction Warlock puts talent points into Curse of Exhaustion, then they can defeat any melee elite not immune to slowing effects. DoTs are applied while running the target around beyond melee range. Even some mobs immune to slowing effects can be killed through clever use of terrain and line of sight. Dot-and-run tactics are the staple for PvP affliction locks. There is nothing more humiliating than being ambushed by a warlock, getting tons of Dots stacked upon you, and slowly die unable to do anything while the warlock runs away cackling at you demise. * High "Fault Tolerance": For those of you non-nerds, that means lots of stuff can go wrong before you reach total failure (in the case of a Warlock, death). One of your DoTs get resisted? No big deal, cast it again. Get an add? Or two? You can handle it. Pet miss a taunt? You're always near full health, so you can take a few shots before he gets aggro back. Pet about to die? You can hit Sacrifice and finish off the battle from behind your nice new shield or run for the hills. For other classes, when a battle goes horribly wrong, it usually means their death. For an Affliction Warlock, it usually means you just have to re-summon your pet. * Strong Against Multiple Targets: Both in groups and solo skilled Affliction Warlocks will easily outdamage any other class short of a skilled Mage. Because multiple DoTs can be stacked onto a single target in far less time than it takes for them to actually deal their damage a Warlock can easily DoT up a second (or even third, depending on your group's composition) target and watch their DPS skyrocket. Weaknesses * Vulnerable to Dispels: In PvP, if it can cure enemies of your DoTs it can usually do it far more efficiently than you can put them back on. However, individual opponents can only dispel either magic effects or curses, but Affliction Warlocks can cast both types, meaning that they can still be somewhat effective. Fortunately Unstable Affliction (and Malediction to a lesser degree) in patch 2.0.1 help with this matter. * Vulnerable in PvP: Affliction Warlocks don't kill fast. That means that if something with good burst damage like a Mage or a Rogue gets you in their sights, there isn't much you can do about it. Howl of Terror or Death Coil followed by Fear is one ways to deal with high damage dealers like this assuming they don't have some way of mitigating the fear effect. * Weak Against Single Targets: The long duration Affliction DoT spells - especially Curse of Agony - do not work fast enough to be effective in a group situation against non-boss targets as coordinated/well-geared groups will mow down trash mobs too quickly for DoTs to run their course. Analysis Some of the Affliction talents are better than others. The following is intended to be a consensus of opinion on the various talents in this tree. * Suppression - In PvP versus characters the same level as you, 2 points gives your affliction spells a 99% chance to hit (the maximum the game allows). More points are only useful against mobs/players that are higher than you. (See Formulas:Spell hit chance for detailed information.) * Improved Corruption - 5 points makes Corruption instant-cast. Incredibly useful, and all Warlocks with any points in the Affliction tree usually max out this talent. Like Curse of Agony, an instant-cast Corruption can be cast while moving, and without facing the opponent. * Improved Curse of Weakness - At level 60, 2 points here will reduce a mob's damage per hit by a mere 6 extra points. On mobs that hit in the hundreds to thousands of damage, it's completely unnoticeable. This talent can be somewhat useful against enemies with very fast attack speeds such as Hunter Pets, Druids in cat form, and certain Rogue builds. There are usually much better places to spend points. * Improved Drain Soul - With 2.0.1 you now receive 7/15% of your maximum mana, which alleviates the two problems this talent had previously: the 5-second rule and that few warlocks had any significant spirit. Also, 5/10% less threat could be useful in 5-man instances or when using the pet to tank. * Improved Life Tap - Arguably one of the best talents for warlocks; it increases the efficiency of your health to mana conversion by a whopping 20%. At level 60, this will increase your Life Tap mana gain from 426 to 511.2. Free mana is always good. * Soul Siphon - A 2 point talent that significantly improves the effects of Drain Life and Drain mana. The more Affliction spells that are on a mob, the greater the effect. This talent greatly enhances the ability of a warlock to Drain Tank. * Improved Curse of Agony - This also didn't scale with gear, and used to provide a flat increase of 62 damage at level 60. In the recent patch this was changed which increased the viability of this talent considerably. * Fel Concentration - Makes Drain Tanking viable, and can also make it easier to collect shards. Affliction Warlocks should max this talent. * Amplify Curse - Has a very fast cooldown, and greatly increases the power of your next Curse of Agony, Curse of Exhaustion or Curse of Doom. For 1 point it's a great spend, and can be nicely worked into a macro so you don't forget about it. * Grim Reach - Great for PvP (it increases Fear range as well), and arguable for group PvE. More range always has utility. In raids, the power enables you to attack from outside of AOE range of a boss. Solo, your drain spells will break on feared mobs less often. Most Warlocks that spend 20 points in Affliction pick up this talent. * Nightfall - This is at its most useful when used in conjunction with Drain Life spam as it will proc regularly rather than infrequently (like with Corruption and Shadow Bolt spam). * Empowered Corruption - Corruption normally receives 96% of your bonus (Shadow) Spell Damage, spread over the duration of the spell. With three talent points, you can make this 132%, or 36% more. This could become a staple of the Affliction Warlock. For more information, see Formulas:Plus damage and Plus healing. * Shadow Embrace - A passive "Curse of Weakness" effect that appears as an additional debuff when any of the specified DoTs are cast on the target. Only one effect will appear per target, and it does not stack with Shadow Embraces from other warlocks. The 5% physical damage reduction is generally considered not to be worth the 5 points you have to spend to get it. Because it's an "affliction effect", however, this talent works in conjunction with the Soul Siphon talent, allowing an additional 5% of life or mana to be drained. For this reason warlocks who do a lot of draining will drop 1 point here. * Siphon Life - This instant DoT costs only 1 talent point and is required for Shadow Mastery. It drains a modest amount of life from the target to the caster, and like all affliction effects adds to Soul Siphon's bonus draining, giving an overall nice boost when Drain Tanking. * Curse of Exhaustion - This is the only snare available to a warlock. Highly situational, but very powerful when it does apply (like when that Fury warrior is barreling toward you with nothing to fear but fear itself). * Improved Curse of Exhaustion was removed in the 2.0.1 patch and its effect was merged into the base talent. * Shadow Mastery - Scales with gear, so it will stack with nearly every spell you'll want to cast if you are this far up the tree. More life, damage and mana for you. Several builds are built around this talent. * Contagion - 5% damage on your Affliction spells is nice, and 30% chance to resist dispel addresses some of the problem Affliction-specced Warlocks have with dispelling in PvP. * Dark Pact - Turns your minion into a mana battery, allowing you to tap less life and still maintain an endless mana pool. You thought your mage friends had a drinking problem before? Wait until they see this! * Improved Howl of Terror - Reduces the cast time on Howl of Terror from 1.5s to Instant Cast. Very useful in PvP, less so in PvE. This talent means that Howl of Terror can be effectively cast while more than one enemy is smacking you around, can be cast while running and can be cast without risking Counterspell, Shield Bash or Kick shutting down your whole Shadow tree. * Malediction - Increases the damage bonus of Curse of Shadows and Curse of the Elements by 3%. Also, though it probably won't become an issue in 25-man instances in The Burning Crusade, the third Warlock in a raid that has this talent will not be able to use it. * Unstable Affliction - Cast one of these on someone in PvP and their healers will be need to think twice about hitting the dispel button. The extra dot adds significant damage to PvE combat, particularly on long running fights like those against bosses and on fights where the warlock can't stand in one spot spamming Shadowbolt. The extra DoT also counts twords boosting the effect of Soul Siphon. Demonology The Demonology tree gives a Warlock more powerful demons and conjured Stones, as well as more stamina and some buffs that take effect when the demon isn't present. It also increases the effectiveness of enslaved Demons and end-game summons, and in the end there's a new way to make the Warlock very hard to kill. Look and Feel A Demonology Warlock will function better with his Demon minion, produce more effective Healthstone for himself and his party members, and have (in some ways) greater combat survivability due to his damage reduction and higher stamina. Very dangerous in PvP situations, as they have one of the highest damage tolerances of any class when soul linked. Unlike warriors, ALL damage, including magic, is cut by 20%, as well as an additional 10% physical if you have your Voidwalker out. This doesn't limit a Warlock's offensive ability in the same way that defensive stance limits a Warrior in the same situations. Master Demonologist ensures that you can fill a variety of roles. Instances and PvE situations will be easier. Strengths * Better Health, Fire and Spell stones. * More effective Demons, including higher damage, more mana, more HP, quicker speeds, and shorter cooldowns. * The Master Demonologist effect, which, based on the current summoned Demon, can reduce incoming damage, reduce threat generation, increase all spell damage, or increase resistances. * Increases your damage, mana capacity, and health while buffing your pet's abilities. * Improved survivability in PvP with the reduced damage of Soul Link and the life regeneration of Drain Life and Death Coil. Weaknesses * Overall low burst damage, making PvP fights harder. * Depending on choice of summoned pet, higher HP is offset by standard DPS, meaning you will live longer but your life means less. * Loss of your Demon can screw you pretty badly. Analysis Some of the Demonology talents are better than others. The following is intended to be a consensus of opinion on the various talents in this tree. *Improved Healthstone - More bang for your buck, since healthstones are on a different timer than health potions, makes you even harder to kill. *Improved Imp - This talent is normally taken for the bonus it gives to the Imp's blood pact spell; the other bonuses are generally considered negligible. *Demonic Embrace - 15% stamina increases your health on expense of Spirit (which is usually considered as less important for Warlocks). *Improved Health Funnel - This used to be a bit of a double-edged sword, providing a poor improvement on an already poor ability. Now it reduces the HP you lose, which increases the talents benefits considerably. Another mechanical change which makes this spell improve with +spell damage/healing has made the spell really worthwhile. *Improved Voidwalker - Improves the Voidwalker's tanking ability significantly. In PvP situations vs. enemies who can't dispel, getting through the improved sacrifice damage shield is a truly grueling prospect. At high levels this can be as much as 2k, and of course you can always resummon... *Fel Intellect - A good talent in combination with Dark Pact, but also with Demonic Knowledge. *Improved Succubus - This talent comes good in combination with Improved Lash of Pain, if the Succubus is used regularly. *Fel Domination - Generally taken with master summoner, (see below). Demonology warlocks use this combination to switch demons in the heat of battle, which is all but impossible for warlocks without these two talents. *Fel Stamina - Good for Warlocks using summoned demons, and also good in combination with Demonic Knowledge. *Demonic Aegis - While the benefit you get from this talent is relatively minor (+30 spell damage and +6% healing received at all times), it is unusual for a talent in the Demonology tree because it neither relies on you having a specific demon active, nor any demon at all. *Master Summoner - This can be considered to be more useful than Fel Domination, since it provides a flat bonus to every summon, and not just an ability on a 15 minute cooldown that does the same. However, there is a strong synergy between these two talents, allowing players to switch pets or replace a lost pet almost instantly. For example, a player in a defensive posture might sacrifice his Voidwalker, then immediately summon another. *Unholy Power - This is considered a staple talent. DPS pets like the Succubus and Felguard benefit directly, while tanking pets have a noticeable improvement in their aggro-holding power. It also increases the damage of the imp's firebolt. *Improved Enslave Demon - Unless you plan on making enslaving demons the point of your Warlock's existence, points are better spent elsewhere. It should be noted that enslaved demons are generally considered to be extremely unreliable, even with this talent. Another sad fact (about the enslave demon spell, more than the talent itself), is that you loose so many of the benefits of the demonology tree (must talents specify "the warlocks Summoned Demons") *Demonic Sacrifice - A Warlock with demonology depends on the summoned demon. However, if the situation doesn't allow the demon to be used effectively, then this talent with provide a buff that depends on what demon was sacrificed. For example, some boss fights in 40 man raids will be much easier for the Warlock using this talent. *Master Conjuror - With Firestones and Spellstones going into your wand slot now, and taking their new, improved functionality into account this talent is not a bad way to spend 2 points. *Mana Feed - This talent is usually only effective when you solo since your pet will use very little mana while in groups/PvP. You should also only apply 1 or 2 points into this instead of the full 3. *Master Demonologist - This talent allows a demonologist warlock extreme versatility. It allows him to drop aggro somewhat consistently, increase damage output, or reduce damage taken by either spellcasters or warrior/rogue type enemies. It should be noted that the damage reduction one gains against spells is widely considered to be significant, although it's difficult to get any concrete numbers on the matter. Regardless, an absolute staple of the Demonology tree. *Demonic Resilience - The main effect is to decrease the damage on the pet, which improves the utility of pets in instances and raids. *Soul Link - This talent really allows warlocks to take a beating. With this talent, the voidwalker master demonologist bonus and demon armor, warlocks get a damage reduction from physical attacks of upwards of 60%, a statistic normally reserved for wearers of plate. And, with the felhunter master demonologist bonus, warlocks have been known to take less than 800 damage from a PvP encounter with full-health mages. It should be stated, however, that this spell is almost worthless in conjunction with the imp; that demon dies from taking the damage from soul link. This talent also improves all damage output by 5%, which in itself would be enough to motivate it's use. *Demonic Knowledge - Increases spell damage depending on the sum of the pet stamina and intellect. Notice that increased spell damage will increase the attack power of the pet, giving the talent a double effect. The stats of your summoned Demons scale with gear, so this talent also increases your damage from equipped stamina and intellect. The boost to your spell damage with a summoned minion at level 70 is roughly 100 with no gear. However, it does not scale to the extent that you can simply wear stamina and intellect gear and expect high amounts of spell damage. Average increases in spell damage at level 70 are about 110-150. *Demonic Tactics - For 5 points you get a 5% increased crit chance for you and your pet, both melee and spells. Given that this mainly benefits those who favour direct damage over DoTs, this talent is likely to be relegated to 0/40/21 raid builds (using Ruin to make effective use of critical hits). Because of that, there has been much criticism to have these 5 points as a requirement for the Summon Felguard talent. *Summon Felguard - The Felguard can only be summoned if this talent has been taken. This is arguably the most destructive pet in the game. As of patch 1.9, 2.0, etc. the felgaurd has been nerfed significantly. Nevertheless, it is still very usefull in PvP, PvE, and the occasional instances. Destruction Destruction improves the direct damage spells of the Warlock. There are talents to increase the speed at which your pets attack here, as well as to improve your damage-dealing spells, their chances to get critical effects, and the damage done when critical effects occur. Look and Feel The two words you must remember when thinking of Destruction Warlocks are: "Burst" and "Damage". That's what Destruction Warlocks are good at. Actually, it's really all they're good at. Where an Affliction Warlock couldn't kill a Rat quickly if he needed to, high level Destruction Warlocks can take out non-elite enemies three levels above them in very short order. Strengths * Burst Damage: The Damage numbers near the end of the Destruction tree are somewhat misleading. While the damage on Conflagrate might look a little low, and you might think that sacrificing a couple of DoT ticks on an Immolate might be a waste with it not doing much damage anyway, you have to remember that the initial damage on both spells get significantly enhanced by talents before hand (Immolate gets increased by 35%!), and with Ruin when they crit, they crit hard. * Try this for some PvP fun! Seduce, lay Curse of the Elements, go to maximum range, cast Soul Fire, while Soul Fire is en route, cast Immolate; they should hit about the same time. If either crits, your target is in a lot of trouble (thanks to Ruin) and will normally panic. You now have 5 instant cast spells you can unleash on them, 2 DOTs (CoA and improved Corruption if you have it)) and 3 burst damage spells (Shadowburn, Conflag and Death Coil), and you can charge or retreat at your leisure. Add insult to injury by using Drain Soul to replace the shard you used on Soul Fire! * At the End of the Day, You're Still a Warlock: If you take away a Rogue's weapons, there isn't much left of him besides Sap and some second rate DoTs. Take away a Destruction Warlock's fire damage, and he still has quite a bit to work with. Take him into Molten Core, and he can still throw around Shadow Bolts. Take away the Destruction tree, and they can still contribute to the raid with the single most versatile selection of Curses in the game. * With new raid friendly talents such as Soul Leech and Destructive Reach in the 2.0.1 patch, destruction locks are now the top contender on the raid damage charts while keeping mana usage and threat generation in check. Weaknesses * Can't Summon Water: Where an Affliction Warlock somewhat resembles a camel and can go for days without a drink, Destruction Warlocks suck down fluids like a dry sponge in a desert. Your mana bar is evil and it hates you. Don't ever forget that, and you had better learn the tavern keepers' on a first name basis. In fact, your Morning Glory Dew account will probably be putting his kids through school. And then he'll be buying a house in the Hamptons with your expenditure on Filtered Draenic Water. * They '''LOVE' Fire!'': Fire immunity is a terrible thing. Considering the majority of the damage you deal will be coming from your enhanced Immolate and Conflagrate spells (we're talking about Destruction Warlocks here, not SM/Ruin Warlocks), fire immunity will cut the damage you deal in excess of 2000 points with those two spells alone. * Difficult to Effectively Use Pet: With the Destruction style of play, it is difficult to use your pet to manage aggro or really do anything other than add more damage. Learn to love the Voidwalker, because it is the only pet that will be able to hold aggro (if you don't crit). * Anything You Can Do...: If all you want to do is burst damage, a Mage is superior in every way. They have much higher damage output, much longer range, much better mana management, and much better escape abilities. Analysis Some of the destruction talents are better than others. The following is intended to be a consensus of opinion on the various talents in this tree. *Improved Shadow Bolt - Whenever you spam shadow bolts, you must have this talent. Even with a low crit rate, this talent shines as a big additional damage bonus. *Cataclysm - Not worth it for anyone but full Dest. But full dest warlocks will only rarely use Shadow Bolt, so this may be a better choice. *Bane - Mages buy Imp Fireball at same talent point cost. You get the same benefit to Shadow Bolt AND this cuts Immolate down to the global cool down time AND cuts Soul Fire down from 6 to 4 seconds! Quite possibly the best Tier 2 talent points you'll ever spend! *Aftermath - A small chance of a snare effect. Points probably better spent on Bane. Possibly useful with a Searing Pain combat kiting build, since the idea is to keep the mobs running around. Unlike Bane, the Mage equivalent is far better (it stuns and is at Tier 1!) *Improved Firebolt - This provides a small improvement to the Imp's DPS, but doesn't make him any more mana efficient. So, he'll do the same damage as before, just faster. If you rely on the Imp to bring down targets, or use his increased rate of fire to control disruption-based opponents (Rogues) in PvP, this might be worth it. Otherwise, spend points elsewhere. *Improved Lash of Pain - A very specific talent. It's great if it fits your playing style, but completely useless otherwise. *Devastation - You need it for Ruin, and if you want to even start thinking about matching a Mage for DPS. *Shadowburn - Instant damage, more powerful than Shadow Bolt, and with 1.9 out, even more likely to return the shard. Worth the point without question. Excellent finisher. *Intensity - As of Patch 2.0.1, this talent applies to ALL destruction type spells, not just AOE. This makes nuking more viable when being beaten down by melee. *Destructive Reach - As of Patch 2.0.1, this talent increases range by 20% AND decreases the threat generated by your destruction spells. This talent is very important for PvP and PvE rading. *Improved Searing Pain - Use Searing Pain when you want to draw hate, so these points can work for you if you want to get the most out of the spell, since crits draw tremendous hate. Also good in PvP. *Pyroclasm - While a popular talent, some think it doesn't proc often enough to be worth the points. Note that the 26% is over the entire duration of the spell. *Improved Immolate - Ups Immolate's already impressive damage, but not by enough to really make it worth it. This is the primary reason many Warlocks stop at Ruin, since you must take this to gain Conflagrate. This high up a tree, you expect better. *Ruin - The primary reason to delve into the destruction tree. *Nether Protection - In PvP, it is a great defensive proc if you are up against fire mages, shadow priests, and other warlocks. This is also pretty useful for certain raid encounters, such as Vael,Terestian Illhoof, and Firemaw. *Emberstorm - Again very poor unless you use a lot of fire... but if you are this far up the tree you will be! Be sure to discover the most effective use of all of your fire spells if you have this. Once you get Incinerate at 64 this talent becomes the Destruction Warlocks' daddy. *Conflagrate - A very under-rated talent. Efficient and instant cast. Its crits are very scary in PvP, and completes the Warlock's Unholy Trinity of Instant Cast Death. A slight problem has arisen as of 2.1 in that a slight delay has been added to this spell, meaning the old pvp favorite of immolate+conflag for massive burst damage has temporarily been, if you wanted to be dramatic, broken. *Backlash - Think nightfall, with some free +crit thrown in. Yes, if you are this deep into this tree you will very likely want and love this one. *Soul Leech - Useful for raiding when Lifetapping. The proc usually isn't too impressive, but when spamming Shadowbolts, it can add up. *Shadow and Flame - This is a large boost to the damage of Shadow Bolt and Incinerate, and when combined with Demonic Sacrifice this will deal some of the highest damage from a single nuke in the game. Good as a standalone talent, but also a prerequisite for Shadowfury. *Shadowfury - This talent gives warlocks a unique new CC spell. It deals damage with a chance to crit AND it AoE stuns for 2 seconds. With a short cast time and 20 second cooldown, this talent completes the destruction tree with an ability equal to the warlock's other 41 point talents. Category:Warlocks Category:Talents